Mary Ellen shares with audiences both her mistakes and victories of her 20 year journey through a prognosis that looked bleak.  Her raw honesty may have some in the audience crying, her humor will have audiences laughing, and her candor gets them on their feet!  She asks the hard questions about how people deal with change in their lives whether at home or in the office.  We all have our stories, we all have suffered to one degree or another.  When all we wanted is taken away how do we react?  Are you making the choices or are anger, resentment and bitterness in charge?  Will you dare to dream new dreams? Mary Ellen delivers a powerful and purposeful message that will have audiences understanding:

• When they are stuck in the past it's because they won't see their future.
• When they are not making conscious choices they are still making choices.
• Over reacting to daily irritations cheat them of a fulfilled life.
• Courage is not something that happens in the absence of fear.
• They can dream new dreams when the old ones have been taken away.
• How to create a new normal in their newly changed world.
• Their greatest enemies are not who they thought they were.
• They will never be alone unless they choose to be alone.
• Perhaps they are the soft spoken stranger.

Topic Overview

 "Puff-balls and Curve-balls":  Puff-balls are irritations; those daily changes or occurrences in our lives that we do not like and choose to get angry about.  What are you feeling when you're in the express line at the grocery store and the person in front of you has four items over the limit and is writing a check?!  How do you choose to react?  Curve-balls are those events in life that come at you (out of nowhere) at 120 miles an hour, hit you right in the gut, get you down on your knees looking up saying, "I can't breathe".  Mary Ellen shows us through humor and drama if you don't practice making conscious choices when the puff-balls float by . . .  when those curve-balls hit grief, anger, and resentment will take charge . . . now you're in big trouble!

 "Fear, the Great Motivator ":  When Mary Ellen looked up the word courage in the dictionary she was floored.  Here's what she found, "the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear".  What?  Really?  Without fear?  Well, no wonder everyone thinks they have to make fear go away before they can choose courageously.  No wonder people consider fear a weakness.  What a myth!  No one can be courageous without first being afraid, period . . . end of story.  Fear is in our DNA wiring for a reason.  Use fear to motivate you to positive action!  Mary Ellen drives home that point home in a way audiences do not soon forget.

 "Moving from survivor to THRIVER": Most of us have faced some kind of struggle if not tragedy in our lives.  Unfortunately most of us have a hard time letting go of what is gone and what will never come back.  Dreams we worked hard for, gone.  People we loved, gone.  Twice cancer and its treatments took so much away from her, the death of her first husband, her home, her income and dreams that were simply gone never to return.  You can choose new dreams in your new changed world.  In every story there are two parts.  What happened?  Did you overcome?  It all comes down to choices during your struggles.  Mary Ellen's story of how she stumbled onto her life saving answers is truly riveting.  Surviving just wasn't good enough anymore.

 A paragraph from Mary Ellen's book - coming soon!

  Resentment and Anger (my new secret friends) found fertile ground deep within my soul.  For them my spirit was like five star resort living.  "Hey", Anger shouted, "we got a live one here, she's letting us weaken Hope and Faith!"  Resentment shouted back with a smirk "Yeah baby, I'm feeling stronger everyday.  Eureka!"  Life was so good inside my spirit Resentment and Anger began to invite friends over for a visit.  Bitterness stopped by frequently to go swimming in my pool of tears.  Fear came by to say "hello"one day and never left!  My new BFF's fed me the untruths that I accepted as my new reality.   They told me all I needed to know.  Nobody understands what I'm going through.  Nobody understands how lonely I am.  Nobody understands became my mantra.